Page 17 of Secret Paths

“She is busy with Bernard the fart beagle.”

“You use jokes when you do not want to talk about something,” she says once we start walking again.

“I use jokes all the time.”

“That is not a defence.”

I do not answer straight away.

The bank has disappeared behind the hedge. All that is left is wet grass, the low rise ahead and Bernard’s stubborn little shape near the back of the group.

“I do not know what I am supposed to do with it,” I say.

“With what?”

“This.” I gesture behind us. “Being angry. Feeling like I should have seen it coming. Having to tell Lexi I have lost my job.”

“She will worry.”

“That is what I am trying to avoid.”

“She will worry whether you tell her now or in three weeks.”

“That is not helpful.”

“It is true.”

I look at her.

Mandy shrugs. “You can be worried and still tell her.”

“You make everything sound simple.”

“No.” She looks ahead. “I just do not think making it complicated helps.”

The hill rises in front of us. It is barely a hill, more of a long slope with ideas above its station. Bernard reaches the bottom, looks up, then lowers himself onto his stomach.

Mrs Higgins sighs.

“Bernard, love. It is barely a rise.”

He turns his head away.

“You walked further than that to steal Luke’s bacon sarnie last month,” Hunter calls from ahead.

Bernard’s ears twitch.

Mrs Higgins reaches into her pocket and takes out the foil parcel.

Mandy looks at me. “Is that a sausage roll?”

“It is.”

Mrs Higgins breaks off a small piece and holds it beneath Bernard’s nose.

“Come on, darling. Just to the top.”

Bernard gets to his feet at once, takes the entire sausage roll from her fingers and waddles up the slope before she can react.